Engineering of peptide assemblies for adaptable protein delivery to achieve efficient intracellular biocatalysis.

Efficient intracellular delivery of native proteins remains a big challenge, which greatly hinders the development of protein therapy. Here, we report a generalizable peptide vector that can encapsulate and deliver various proteins to achieve efficient intracellular biocatalysis. The peptide was rationally designed to be cationic amphiphilic peptide that consist of four functional fragments, that is, a hydrophobic domain to promote molecular assembly, an enzyme-cleavable fragment to introduce stimuli-responsibility, several cationic arginine (Arg) residues to enhance cell interaction and transmembrane efficiency, and the cystine (Cys) residues with redox sensitivity to adjust the stability of the peptide/protein complexes as needed.

Deficiency of DEK proto-oncogene alleviates allergic rhinitis by inhibiting RhoA/Ezrin-mediated mitochondrial fission.

Background: Allergic rhinitis (AR) is a kind of immune disease mediated by IgE. We are intrigued by the potential role of DEK proto-oncogene (DEK) in inflammation-related diseases. We investigated the effects and mechanisms of DEK in treating AR, aiming to identify potential new treatment targets for AR.

LuCl/B(CF) Cocatalyzed Reductive Deoxygenation of Ketones, Aldehydes, Alcohols, and Ethers to Alkanes with Pinacolborane.

This report describes the LuCl/B(CF) cocatalyzed reductive deoxygenation of 67 ketones, aldehydes, alcohols, and ethers to alkanes under mild conditions. The strategy tolerates reactive amino, hydroxyl, nitro, halogen, vinyl, and ester functional groups, and the results demonstrate rare chemoselective deoxygenation of α,β-unsaturated ketones. Isotopic labeling experiments, control experiments, and derivatization studies are used to elucidate the reaction mechanism.

Organometallic Polymer Constructed by Active Fe-CN Centers for Boosting Sodium-Ion Storage.

Organic-metal coordination materials with rich structural diversity are considered as promising electrode materials for rechargeable sodium-ion batteries. However, the electrochemical performance can be constrained by the limited number of active sites and structural instability under the discharge/charge process. Herein, organometallic polymer microspheres (Fe-PDA-220) with a unique d-π conjugated structure was designed and successfully constructed through a simple synchronous polymerization and coordination reactions.

Disruption of the PGE synthesis / response pathway restrains atherogenesis in programmed cell death-1 (Pd-1) deficient hyperlipidemic mice.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) that target programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) have revolutionized cancer treatment by enabling the restoration of suppressed T-cell cytotoxic responses. However, resistance to single-agent ICIs limits their clinical utility. Combinatorial strategies enhance their antitumor effects, but may also enhance the risk of immune related adverse effects of ICIs.

Surface-Enriched Room-Temperature Liquid Bismuth for Catalytic CO Reduction.

Bismuth-based electrocatalysts are effective for carbon dioxide (CO) reduction to formate. However, at room temperature, these materials are only available in solid state, which inevitably suffers from surface deactivation, declining current densities, and Faradaic efficiencies. Here, the formation of a liquid bismuth catalyst on the liquid gallium surface at ambient conditions is shown as its exceptional performance in the electrochemical reduction of CO (i.

Protein engineering of lipase A from Candida antarctica to improve esterification of tertiary alcohols.

Chiral tertiary alcohols are important organic compounds in science as well as in industry. However, their preparation in enantiomerically pure form is still a challenge due to their complex structure and steric hindrances compared with primary and secondary alcohols, so kinetic resolution could be an attractive approach.  Lipase A from Candida antarctica (CAL-A) has been shown to catalyze the enantioselective esterification of various tertiary alcohols with excellent enantioselectivity but low activity.

Automatic segmentation of hemispheric CSF on MRI using deep learning: Quantifying cerebral edema following large hemispheric infarction.

Background And Objective: Cerebral edema (CED) is a serious complication of acute ischemic stroke (AIS), especially in patients with large hemispheric infarction (LHI). Herein, a deep learning-based approach is implemented to extract CSF from T2-Weighted Imaging (T2WI) and evaluate the relationship between quantified cerebrospinal fluid and outcomes.

Methods: Patients with acute LHI who underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) were included.

Identifying IDH-mutant and 1p/19q noncodeleted astrocytomas from nonenhancing gliomas: Manual recognition followed by artificial intelligence recognition.

Background: The T2-FLAIR mismatch sign (T2FM) has nearly 100% specificity for predicting IDH-mutant and 1p/19q noncodeleted astrocytomas (astrocytomas). However, only 18.2%-56.

ALDH2 is a novel biomarker and exerts an inhibitory effect on melanoma.

Melanoma is a malignant skin tumor. This study aimed to explore and assess the effect of novel biomarkers on the progression of melanoma. Differently expressed genes (DEGs) were screened from GSE3189 and GSE46517 datasets of Gene Expression Omnibus database using GEO2R.

Distinguishing Tumor Cell Infiltration and Vasogenic Edema in the Peritumoral Region of Glioblastoma at the Voxel Level via Conventional MRI Sequences.

Rationale And Objectives: The peritumoral region of glioblastoma (GBM) is composed of infiltrating tumor cells and vasogenic edema, which are difficult to distinguish manually on MRI. To distinguish tumor cell infiltration and vasogenic edema in GBM peritumoral regions, it is crucial to develop a method that is precise, effective, and widely applicable.

Materials And Methods: We retrieved the image characteristics of 379,730 voxels (marker of tumor infiltration) from 28 non-enhanced gliomas and 365,262 voxels (marker of edema) from the peritumoral edema region of 14 meningiomas on conventional MRI sequences (T1-weighted image, the contrast-enhancing T1-weighted image, the T2-weighted image, the T2-fluid attenuated inversion recovery image, and the apparent diffusion coefficient map).

Elevated tissue transglutaminase levels in aqueous humor of congenital cataractous eyes with long axial length.

Objective: To investigate the distribution of axial length (AL) and posterior staphyloma (PS) in congenital cataract (CC) patients. The correlation between AL and the concentration of tissue transglutaminase (TGM2) in the aqueous humor (AH) of cataractous eyes was also evaluated.

Methods: Cross-sectional data were collected from 499 children with CC who underwent phacoemulsification, anterior vitrectomy, and IOL implantation.

A Noncoding A-to-U Kozak Site Change Related to the High Transmissibility of Alpha, Delta, and Omicron VOCs.

Three prevalent SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOCs) emerged and caused epidemic waves. It is essential to uncover advantageous mutations that cause the high transmissibility of VOCs. However, viral mutations are tightly linked, so traditional population genetic methods, including machine learning-based methods, cannot reliably detect mutations conferring a fitness advantage.

Adult mice with noise-induced hearing loss exhibited temporal ordering memory deficits accompanied by microglia-associated neuroplastic changes in the medial prefrontal cortex.

Acquired peripheral hearing loss in midlife is considered the primary modifiable risk factor for dementia, while the underlying pathological mechanism remains poorly understood. Excessive noise exposure is the most common cause of acquired peripheral hearing loss in modern society. This study was designed to investigate the impact of noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) on cognition, with a focus on the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), a brain region that is involved in both auditory and cognitive processes and is highly affected in patients with cognitive impairment.

Identification of Endometrial Cancer-Specific microRNA Biomarkers in Endometrial Fluid.

Abnormal uterine bleeding is a common benign gynecological complaint and is also the most common symptom of endometrial cancer (EC). Although many microRNAs have been reported in endometrial carcinoma, most of them were identified from tumor tissues obtained at surgery or from cell lines cultured in laboratories. The objective of this study was to develop a method to detect EC-specific microRNA biomarkers from liquid biopsy samples to improve the early diagnosis of EC in women.

Broadband electrically controlled reflective metasurface for reconfigurable circularly polarized wavefront manipulation.

A broadband, electrically controlled, reconfigurable, circularly polarized reflective metasurface is presented. The chirality of the metasurface structure is changed by switching active elements, which benefits from the tunable current distributions generated by the elaborately designed structure under x-polarized and y-polarized waves. Notably, the proposed metasurface unit cell maintains a good circular-polarization efficiency in a broadband range of 6.

Two simple-to-use web-based nomograms to predict overall survival and cancer-specific survival in patients with extremity fibrosarcoma.

Background: Fibrosarcoma is a rare sarcoma of the soft tissue in adults, occurring most commonly in the extremities. This study aimed to construct two web-based nomograms to predict overall survival (OS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS) in patients with extremity fibrosarcoma (EF) and validate it with multicenter data from the Asian/Chinese population.

Method: Patients with EF in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database between 2004 and 2015 were included in this study and were randomly divided into a training cohort and a verification cohort.

The impact of pre-operative axial length on myopic shift 3 years after congenital and developmental cataract surgery and intraocular lens implantation.

Purpose: To investigate the impact of the pre-operative axial length (AL) on myopic shift (MS) 3 years after primary intraocular lens (IOL) implantation in congenital/developmental cataract patients.

Methods: A retrospective study of patients who underwent congenital/developmental cataract surgery and primary IOL implantation at age 2-3 years at EENT Hospital was conducted. All patients were followed up regularly for at least 3 years after surgery.

Three amino acid substitutions contributing to thermostability of phosphoglucose isomerase in the Glanville fritillary butterfly.

Temperature is one of the most important environmental factors that affect organisms, especially ectotherms, due to its effects on protein stability. Understanding the general rules that govern thermostability changes in proteins to adapt high-temperature environments is crucial. Here, we report the amino acid substitutions of phosphoglucose isomerase (PGI) related to thermostability in the Glanville fritillary butterfly (Melitaea cinxia, Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae).

Prognostic significance of tumor deposits in radically resected gastric cancer: a retrospective study of a cohort of 1915 Chinese individuals.

Background: Tumor deposits (TDs) have been identified as an independent prognostic factor in gastric cancer (GC). However, the associated clinicopathological factors and how to simply and reasonably incorporate TD into the TNM staging system remain undetermined. The aim of the current study was therefore to assess the significance of TD among radically resected GC patients.

Arylboronic Acid-Catalyzed Racemization of Secondary and Tertiary Alcohols.

The use of 2-carboxyphenylboronic acid (5 mol %) and oxalic acid (10 mol %) with 2-butanone as a solvent for the racemization of a range of enantiomerically pure secondary and tertiary alcohols is demonstrated. The process is postulated to proceed via reversible Brønsted acid-catalyzed C-O bond cleavage through an achiral carbocation intermediate.